Over 52 million people -- predominantly women -- worldwide are employed as domestic workers, an increase of over 19 million workers since the mid-1990s, according to the report, which notes that its figures are likely considerable underestimations as the domestic workforce is hard to accurately survey. Of these millions of workers, ILO found, "only 10 percent of all domestic workers (or 5.3 million) are covered by general labor legislation to the same extent as other workers. By contrast, more than one-quarter – 29.9 percent, or some 15.7 million domestic workers – are completely excluded from the scope of national labor legislation."

The report highlighted "working time" as one of the biggest problems for the domestic workforce: "More than half of all domestic workers have no limitation on their weekly normal hours under national law, and approximately 45 percent have no entitlement to weekly rest periods."